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June 30, 2006

Striking at the core

The Washington Post is joyously hyperventilating over the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision, claiming that it strikes at Bush's core.

Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush's military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.

[...]

At a political level, the decision carries immediate ramifications. It provides fodder to critics who turned Guantanamo Bay into a metaphor for an administration run amok.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I haven't had a chance to fully review what the court said, Terry. I wish I had, and I could have given you a better answer. As I say, we take the findings seriously. And, again, as I understand it -- now please don't hold me to this -- that there is a way forward with military tribunals in working with the United States Congress; as I understand certain senators have already been out expressing their desire to what the Supreme Court found, and we will work with the Congress. I want to find a way forward.

In other words, I have told the people that I would like for there to be a way to return people from Guantanamo to their home countries, but some of them -- people need to be tried in our courts. And that's -- the Hamdan decision was the way forward for that part of my statement, and, again, I would like to review the case. And we are, we've got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress if that's available to solve the problem.

I've only had time to scan the opinions briefly and may have further comments later. For now, the one apparent implication of Hamdan is that hundreds of Guantanamo detainees will become participants in the American judicial system. If they thought Gitmo has been a strange and disorienting experience, they haven't seen anything yet.

So according to Hinderaker, the impact of the decision will fall more on the detainees than on the President or the rest of us. Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarter agrees but sees the American judicial system the least of the prisoners' problems.

Shorter Stevens: Don't attempt to hold trials at all for GWOT detainees, and you will have no problems with us. That affirms the treatment of these detainees as POWs in some sense, but in that effort, it makes clear that these detainees have no rights to any court. Stevens only says that if the government wants to try them, then the government must use civil courts, a strange ruling nonetheless when one reviews the relevant articles of the Geneva Convention.

I'm satisfied with that agreement. Lock all of them up until Islamofascists surrender or die. When the Islamist terror networks give up their war on the United States, then we will release them. Until then, they can remain in Guantanamo Bay or wherever we set up detention facilities for them.

The President's remark, that he would like to find a way to send the prisoners home, seems to imply that the tribunals were a way around holding prisoners for the duration. Whether that's true or not, the immediate impact of this decision will not be their immediate release. And if the Captain's take is right, for many of the prisoners, release could be substantially delayed. I can't imagine the Geneva Convention demands the release of prisoners of war before the war is over.

As I understand, a Senator has already been on TV. Haven't seen it, haven't heard what he said, but as -- they briefed me and said he wants to devise law in conformity with the case that would enable us to use a military tribunal to hold these people to account. And if that's the case, we'll work with him.

If the Senate is already working toward authorization to continue the tribunals, the Supreme Court's decision may turn out to be more of a speed bump than an obstacle to Bush's presidential power. But think of this in terms of how might this affect Senate Democrats. Will their opposition to everything Bush once again box them into taking up the cause of our enemies? Most likely, yes. I chuckle as I imagine them jumping at the chance.